Monthly Archives: September 2013

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XCOR follows a rapid design-build-test approach to developing new products and systems critical to the success of all XCOR programs. We excel at the fast hardware design, build and test of non-toxic liquid propulsion systems. This includes our Lynx main engines, as discussed last week. While non-toxic systems are critical to the overall safety of the Lynx system, they are also vital to the low cost of operation and ownership of Lynx.

“Build a little, test a little”

This “build a little, test a little” approach allows for many Lynx concepts to be evaluated, physically validated and changed rapidly using inexpensive and practical analysis and test methods, rather than relying solely on costly and time-consuming modeling and simulation. It also allows for other projects to generate serious results.

For example, other programs have received multimillion dollar contracts to study pumps without building any hardware. Eventually, a pump may be produced for many more millions of dollars. On the other hand, over a period of 2 years and at dramatically less cost, XCOR has worked with ULA to produce a working liquid hydrogen pump that demonstrates convincingly that it will work for a similar-sized engine with much higher reliability and reusability, and again, at far lower cost. Such outcomes are possible due to frequent and routine testing followed by fast iterations. This produces truly innovative results, and a serious increase in safety and reliability.

When fast iteration is pursued, XCOR focuses on critical operational parameters and requirements for propulsion such as low production costs, ease of maintenance, long life, full reusability and long term producibility. For long-term producibility, we are designing to anticipate the related techniques, materials and processes that may be readily available 20 to 30 years from today.

There are further critical elements, and by focusing on these parameters we drive down total cost of ownership of our systems through upfront procurement cost, maintenance man hours per flight, vehicle turnaround time, life of the product, cost of replacement parts, and reduced support crew and equipment. This positive feedback loop is a benefit to our customers, but also enables enhanced safety. The lower cost of the system to operate, the more that system may be flown. The more it is flown, the more we learn. And the more we learn, the safer we can be.

Design-build-test and XCOR culture

Mobile test stands also feed into our approach. With only minimal fixed test infrastructure at remote locations, we eliminate the need for separate crews reporting to different parts of a larger organization. This fosters a unified design-build-test culture in our company. All equipment and personnel return to the hangar at the end of each test day. Propulsion systems under test are worked on in the comfort of the hangar with all tools and personnel available, then taken to the nearby test site. All engineers and technicians work together toward the common goal of a working product.

Nothing is duplicated, we are one team, costs are contained and safety improves yet again.

So today we are going to give you a couple of videos, and answer a couple of questions.

Questions first.

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Please let us know in the comments if you have questions and we will answer them (as possible).

Several questions came in from the past couple of days, here are the answers.

First, what does Kerosene *do* onboard Lynx? Does it cool the engine or fuel it? The answer is “both.”

Second, who built the tri-sonic wind tunnel in yesterday’s shot from Huntsville, Alabama? The answer there is NASA.

UPDATED QUESTION: And finally, do participants sit up front with the pilot, in a space suit when flying on Lynx? The answer is an emphatic “yes, just you and the pilot-astronaut, both in spacesuits!”

UPDATED COMMENT: Another comment worth mentioning. A fan on Facebook posted that he is “Pretty excited… although you guys [could stand to] post test and simulation videos. You could also give more enginnering info, get more technical. The cool stuff is hidden in there!”

We agree. We have only just begun!

In the near future, we will have lots more videos and technical information, and open up Fridays to live chats with the XCOR team–where you can ask them questions directly. More to come!

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Here is a video of chief test pilot Rick Searfoss last week discussing Lynx at the Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s Members Meeting in Houston. His part starts around the 1:22 mark.

In the coming week we will share some developments about where to find the full-scale Lynx on the road, and what XCOR will be doing at a couple of upcoming conferences and events!

In this image, XCOR engineer Brandon Litt makes final preparations to a Lynx supersonic wind tunnel model before performing a test at the storied NASA Marshall tri-sonic wind tunnel in Huntsville, Alabama.

Above, a NASA Marshall spaceflight engineer tests a similarly sized supersonic wind tunnel model of the Space Shuttle in the same facility during the early years of the Shuttle program. The results of the Shuttle tunnel tests were critical to the go-forward decision to build and fly the Space Shuttle.

We believe that test pilots and customers alike require confidence that the spacecraft they fly on has been evaluated and tested extensively prior to flight. And in this day and age, many rely on computer simulation to be sure that their aircraft can perform at the level required.

XCOR used Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and other software analysis tools to design the shape of the Lynx aeroshell. However, things really accelerated when we were able to perform a series of seven subsonic and supersonic wind tunnel test campaigns at United States Air Force (USAF) and NASA labs.

Typically, the faster the tunnel, the smaller the available space. Supersonic wind tunnel models are traditionally smaller than their subsonic counterparts due to the available space in supersonic tunnel test sections. The models must not only fit, but have room to change pitch and yaw inside the tunnel without approaching the side walls of the tunnel. If the model is too close to the walls, edge effects from the walls can be picked up in the data, and ruin the test.

Because supersonic wind tunnels are so small, Lynx models themselves must be highly precise to adequately simulate the full scale spacecraft. The models have many pieces that are interchangeable to test different configurations of the vehicle. For example, a model may have 5-10 different nose shapes, 5-10 different permutations of wing aileron settings, and so on. Because of this, the models can become quite expensive, sometimes approaching several hundred thousand dollars.

Because the actual Lynx is so much smaller in real life than the Space Shuttle attached to the solid rocket boosters and center fuel tank, the Lynx model shown above is actually much larger (almost 3-4 times larger) in scale than the Space Shuttle model.

Tomorrow we answer some of the week’s questions and let you know where you can find XCOR on the road in the near future. In particular, we’ll have some updates for future appearances of XCOR team members and the Lynx full scale model.

The Lynx flight weight fuselage is mounted on the fire wall test stand, awaiting re-installation of the engine truss structure.

On Wednesdays we highlight progress on various structural components such as the fuselage, strakes, wings, nose and landing gear.

Always build a house with a strong foundation. Always anchor a suspension bridge into bedrock. A similar principle holds true for spacecraft: they must always be built on a solid structural core that can stand up to flight in harsh environments.

The Lynx structure consists of several critical components: the fuselage (containing the liquid oxygen tank), the wings and control surfaces, wing strakes (containing our kerosene fuel, and main landing gear), cockpit, and nose (containing the nose landing gear).

Our spacecraft is a complex assembly of highly-engineered structures designed to maximize strength and minimize weight. Each have their own functional requirements, and must serve the function of the vehicle as a whole. More so than any other application, form follows function very tightly on a high performance launch vehicle.

At the center of the Lynx is the fuselage. The fuselage holds the liquid oxygen tank, and all other major structural components attach to the fusleage. These include the truss structure that holds the propulsion system (Monday’s post), the cockpit (yesterday’s post), the wing strakes that hold the kerosene and the main landing gear, the nose structure, and the wings with their control surfaces.

The fuselage can be seen in the photo above. In it, the carbon fiber structure has been painted to protect it from the sun’s UV radiation, as UV can degrade the carbon fiber structure. The fuselage is sitting on its cradle on the Lynx firewall test stand, waiting for the propulsion system to be re-attached.

Each Tuesday we detail features of the cockpit, its avionics and life support systems, environmental controls, pressure suits and payload configurations. We will also take a look at fabrication, mockups and other key design points.

When boarding Lynx, you climb right into the cockpit, slide down and strap in next to the pilot. It is an unobstructed view, and within minutes after liftoff you experience the Earth, stars and space at 328,000 feet inside the glass canopy of the Lynx cockpit.

This cockpit is a self-contained pressurized vessel that sits inside the outer shell of the Lynx vehicle. It is attached to the fuselage (containing the liquid oxygen tank), the wing strakes (containing the
kerosene fuel), and the nose (containing the front landing gear).

Note that the windscreen on the Lynx cockpit actually constitutes *two* different windscreens. The distinctive flat panel look of the front windscreen is high temperature / high strength glass that protects the cockpit from heat and forceful strikes.

The inner windscreen is a complex curved shape that holds the pressure of the cockpit.

The Lynx cockpit is maintained at approximately 8000 feet “pressure altitude”, similar to what we experience flying New York to Los Angeles in a Boeing 737. To maintain this environment, the cockpit includes a life support system which is also integral to the pressure suits that both pilot and spaceflight participants wear as safety back-up devices in case there is ever a loss of pressure. In normal operating conditions, breathable air is circulated through the cabin and suit from an onboard supply.

Over the next few Tuesdays we will show you the cockpit in various stages of construction.

This shot of the Lynx 5K18 engine truss and Lynx main fuselage was captured during a hotfire outside XCOR’s bunker at the Mojave Air and Space Port in early 2013. This particular engine test was one of the world’s very first fully piston pump-driven rocket engine firings.

Let’s start with the Lynx main engines, how we name them and a bit about how 5K18 pumps and regenerative cooling work.

How we name our engines

As just mentioned, Lynx main engines include four XR-5K18s. The engine naming and numbering scheme we use follows a specific naming convention, like most things in aerospace or automotive.

The “XR” stands for “XCOR Rocket”.

The “5” stands for the thrust class of this rocket engine.

The “K” in this case is for the fuel, here it’s kerosene.

The “18” is the 18th overall engine design since XCOR was founded. For example, our X-Racer was powered by the XR-4K14 engine, a fourth-generation engine powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen, and the 14th overall engine design we had initiated at the time.

Fully pump-fed engines

Sometimes when testing our engines we use highly-pressurized inert gas, such as helium, to force the oxidizer and fuel into the engine for combustion. Or our engines may be powered by pumps that move oxidizer and fuel from low pressure tanks to high pressure before feeding them into the engine for combustion. And sometimes we do half and half: half pressure-fed and half pump-fed.

In operations, Lynx 5K18 engines will be fully pump-fed.

Regenerative cooling

The 5K18 engine uses “regenerative cooling” to prevent it from melting during the extreme temperatures of rocket combustion. Tiny capillaries inside the wall of each engine (and engine nozzle) have cooling liquid that flows through them to maintain appropriate temperatures. In the 5K18 we use kerosene fuel to cool the engine just prior to it being injected into the engine for combustion.

This is not a new idea. In fact, it has been used on most liquid rocket engines since the early days by pioneers such as Wernher von Braun (Germany, 1930s) and Reaction Motors (US, 1940s).

Over the next few Mondays you will experience a set of behind-the-scenes photos and see some of what it takes to build, prepare and test these engines. We will also highlight the unique features of this propulsion system that make it one of the most advanced and reliable rocket propulsion systems in existence today.

Friday is also the day we wrap each week, look ahead, update you on where you can find XCOR in the media, and at conferences and all the rest.

This particular post is to let you know how and where to connect with us (see below for the channel links).

Note that on Fridays we will also host some live conversations, and most often we will reply–in posts and comments–right here on the blog and on Twitter.

We are also asking for feedback from you, and highlighting the best responses as they come in: what you love, what you want to see, all of it. All we need to do is keep it constructive and remain relevant to the discussion at hand.

If you have inquiries not related to a post, feel free to email bryan [at] xcor [dot] com.

And if you are all business all the time (or just really like LinkedIn), connect with us on Linkedin.

Next week we’ll start the full court press, providing you with an ongoing and daily update of the various Lynx systems and subsystems we’ve been building, and the processes in place to bring you the coolest spacecraft ever.

Thank you for joining with us on this incredible journey, and have a great weekend!

As discussed, Thursday 9am Pacific is the time each week that we discuss aerodynamics, modeling, simulation, test process and results. [Note: we delayed today’s post by 20 minutes to make room for some other excellent news from our neighbors].

Developing the outer aeroshell for Lynx has been a long and detailed process. From early concepts to wind tunnel tests and “schlieren” shockwave photographs, we will give you a visual tour of what it is like to design an airfoil for a spacecraft, and hear from the people who are doing just that.

XCOR uses computer modeling, simulation, and analysis tools in the aeroshell development process. We have also used subsonic, transonic and supersonic wind tunnels to test and analyze the aeroshell design from very low speeds up to over Mach 4. This will continue into actual flight tests, where we will use an incremental “expand the envelope” approach from slow speed taxi tests to supersonic flights.

Beginning each day next week at 9am PST, Monday through Friday, we will post a piece of the Lynx story online.

We will start with background on Lynx systems and subsystems and how they’ve been developed, tested and integrated. Each day will be reserved for a different set of systems and subsystems.

On Monday, we follow Lynx propulsion system development, starting with the origins of the Lynx main engine, the 5K18. We cover its main parts, a bit about our design-build-test approach, move to subjects such as cold flow tests and hotfires, and take a deeper look inside Lynx thrusters (the 3N22).

Every Tuesday we give you an inside look at the Lynx cockpit and avionics.

Pictured: XCOR welder, machinist and fabricator Eber West performs a test weld for a fixture to mount the Lynx truss to a firewall test stand.

For many weeks and months the XCOR team has been hard at work on a journey like no other, building Lynx. We would like to share that experience with you, and share what excites and motivates our team in developing Lynx. We will bring you the story daily, a piece at a time, all the way through the flight test program to first commercial flight. Just stay here to follow along. It will be a marathon, not a sprint. But it will be a marathon at Mach speed!

What you will see, hear and feel over the coming year is nothing less than the birth of a spacecraft told by the people who are that craft.

So welcome to the XCOR hangar. It’s going to be quite a ride—and you are coming with us.

Tomorrow – A brief look at Lynx systems, subsystems, and how we tell the story so that you can follow the build.